URLs du Jour

It is perhaps the central irony of our politics today: We live in an incredibly polarized and partisan moment, but our political parties have never been weaker.

As odd as it sounds, political parties in democracies have an important anti-democratic function. Traditionally, the parties shaped the choices put to voters. Long before voters decided anything in the primary or general elections, party bosses worked to groom good candidates, weed out bad ones, organize interests, and frame issues.

OK, the good old days had their problems. But, as Jonah notes,
political power that used to reside with people in that business has
now been farmed out to corruptible amateurs. And, as just two examples: "This is why every Academy Awards ceremony
is peppered with asinine political jeremiads, and why
late-night-comedy hosts serve as de facto Democratic-party
organizers."

(Also see Joy Behar, below.)

Andrew Marzoni, "a writer, editor and musician in Brooklyn", tells
the truth in the Washington Post:
Academia
is a cult. And he knows whereof he speaks:

As a teenager growing up in the Living Word Fellowship, an
international Christian organization widely regarded as a cult, I
aspired to be a writer. Instead, I spent seven days a week at
church: It was where I worshiped, socialized, ate, volunteered and
even went to school. One summer, at the fellowship’s “School of
Prophets” camp in rural Iowa, a senior pastor took his turn at the
pulpit to encourage the youth of the congregation to skip college,
work for the church and live in one of its communal homes in Hawaii
or Brazil, which many in my graduating class went on to do. My
parents, who joined the cult as graduate students in the 1970s but
have recently left, were an educated anomaly in a culture that
valued faith over reason. I’m grateful for my father, who in passing
later that day told the pastor in seriousness disguised as
joviality, “Stay away from my kids.”

So Andrew went to college. And started an academic career, But
eventually came to realize…

Looking back, the evidence was everywhere: I’d seen needless tears
in the eyes of classmates, harangued in office hours for having the
gall to request a letter of recommendation from an adviser. Others’
lives were put on hold for months or sometimes years by dissertation
committee members’ refusal to schedule an exam or respond to an
email. I met the wives and girlfriends of senior faculty members,
often former and sometimes current advisees, and heard rumors of
famed scholars whisked abroad to sister institutions in the wake of
grad student affairs gone awry. I’d first come in contact with such
unchecked power dynamics as a child, in the context of church. In
adulthood, as both a student and an employee of a university, I
found myself subject to them once again.

It's not surprising that, in a country that (rightly) prides itself on
"separation of church and state", that some other secular
institution worms its way into a similar niche in the social ecosystem.
With the hearty support, financial and otherwise, of the state.
And develop the same misfeatures.

In the liberal imagination there are only four ways to lose
elections — and none have to do with their increasingly leftist
turn, their hysterics, or their one-dimensional identity politics.
Democrats lose because of “gerrymandering,” “voter suppression”
(sometimes known as “asking for ID”), Russian mind-control rays
deployed by social media, and our antiquated and unfair
Constitution.

The final one of these excuses is becoming increasingly popular
among liberal pundits who continue to invent new crises to freak out
about.

Sometimes it gets pretty silly, as with
Joy
Behar on The View complaining that Democrats lost US
Senate races "because of gerrymandering".

Republicans have established a clear pattern on health care. First,
they rail against whatever big-government scheme Democrats propose.
Then, after a half-hearted and incompetent effort to convince the
public of the benefits of a market-oriented system, they abandon
their principles and adopt the big-government idea as their own in
order to win or hold power.

The spectacle of Republican candidates tripping over themselves to
announce their commitment to preserving requirements for coverage of
pre-existing conditions, a key component of the Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare) and the mandate most responsible for making insurance
unaffordable for average Americans, is one example.

Also, as Veronique points out, the recent announcement from the
Trump administration to base Medicare Part B reimbursements on
international drug prices, a significant step toward price controls.

Which states sentence you to a life of long commutes, high unemployment, ridiculous rent prices, and grueling work hours?

Yes, it's junk statistics, but it's fun. New Hampshire is in the
middle, position #29. The least-stressed states are unsurprising:
Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North and South Dakota.

Compare and contrast with the
rankings
made by "Mental Health America". Here, Minnesota is the sanest
state, Nevada the nuttiest. NH comes in at #10, not too shabby for a
state WHERE MOST OF THE PEOPLE ARE SECRETLY LIZARDS I TELL YOU.

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